JMP Securities analyst says Apple having ‘crushing success’ with iPad

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Analyst calls iPad ‘crushing success’

NEW YORK — Sales of Apple’s iPad appear to be a “crushing success,” says JMP Securities analyst Douglas Ireland.

THE OPINION: Ireland said he checked sales of the iPad compared with netbooks (small, cheaper laptops used mainly to surf the Web) at a dozen Best Buy stores nationwide. He said he found only one iPad available across the entire country, in Chicago. It seems, Ireland added, that Apple is shipping between 10 and 25, or at most 30, iPads per shipment “and the 3G-enabled devices are selling within hours of arriving, with the WiFi ones very close behind.” The 3G iPads allow users to connect to AT&T’s cellular network for a monthly fee.

“Apple is obviously having crushing success with the iPad, but it seems to be more tangential to netbooks than overlapping because they are used for different purposes,” the analyst wrote.

THE STOCK: Shares of Apple Inc., which unveiled the new iPhone at its annual conference for software developers Monday, fell $2.26 to $253.70 in afternoon trading. It has traded in the 52-week range of $132.88 and $272.46.